Prolonged Exposure

Chapter 20

Camille was silent on the short drive home, and I was grateful for that. I hadn’t been ready for Estelle’s curveball, and my mind was a wallow of ridiculous thoughts that bordered more on self-pity than anything else.

Estelle had never mentioned the possibility of her physician husband accepting a position elsewhere, but I realized I was foolish to assume that a young, talented surgeon would set his sights on nothing more than a career in Posadas, reaming varicose veins. Somehow, I’d allowed the assumption to grow and flourish in my head that Estelle, Francis, and my two godsons would always be a part of my existence in Posadas.

But goddamn Minnesota? Even before I had pulled into my driveway on Escondido, I had transferred my worry to Estelle. What was she going to do in that bleak, cold, chililess land? I hadn’t asked, either, and that irritated me even more.

I didn’t know anything about the state, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but common sense told me that Minnesota probably had just as many counties as New Mexico, if not dozens more-and each one had a sheriff’s department. And there was the state police, and the city police, and village constables-and any department would jump at the chance to hire an experienced female minority officer who was bilingual, and talented to boot.

“We’ll have to send them care packages full of sand, green chili, and pinon smoke,” I muttered as Camille and I went inside. Standing in the foyer of my rambling home, I realized just how scruffy the Gonzalez place was. My daughter didn’t respond to my lament, heading for the kitchen instead.

I tossed my jacket on the bench by the front door and ambled down the hall, eyes locked on the polished Saltillo tile floor, old and buffed to a gleam like polished saddle leather. In the living room, I found my road atlas and idly turned the pages, pausing here and there without really looking until I landed in Minnesota. The city of Rochester was in the southeast corner. By squinting and shifting my glasses, I could almost read the fine print.

It looked like Olmsted County included the city. I wondered who the Sheriff of Olmsted County was, and if he was a former used-car salesman like Marty Holman. “Posadas, where?” he’d ask, and he probably thought that he would need a visa to visit.

“You want a snack?” Camille called from the kitchen, and I closed the atlas and slid it back on the shelf.

“Sure,” I mumbled.

“You know, I had a thought,” Camille said. I stopped beside the table, looking at the array of hors d’oeuvres she’d assembled. “You’ve got plenty of room here.”

“Here? For what?” I asked, and sampled a miniature nacho-a nuked chip with cheese and a slice of jalapeno on top. It was so hot, it made my eyes water.

Camille stepped to the kitchen door and looked out toward the five-acre jungle. “You’ve got enough room for horses right here, Dad. All it would take is hiring some kids to clean out the undergrowth.”

“What a job that would be,” I said.

“Less than what you’ve got in mind for the Gonzalez place,” my daughter replied. “And the biggest job is finished. You’ve got a marvelous home here.”

I shrugged. “Yep.”

She hefted the coffeepot and poured two cups. I could tell from the aroma that it was the real thing. “I wonder if Sheriff Holman knows yet,” she said. “That she’s leaving, I mean.”

“Well, if he doesn’t, he will soon enough. And he’s got until June first to do something about it. When Estelle leaves, so does our entire detective division.”

“Is there anyone you’d care to move into her place?”

“I’m not sure. Probably Eddie Mitchell. When he and Skip Bishop work together, they make a pretty good team.”

“What about Bob Torrez?”

I shook my head. “He runs the Patrol Division. We’ll ask him, but he’s never shown any inclination to move out of uniform.” I ate another nacho. “Our problem is that we’re a tiny department. I mean, I say Patrol Division, but that means only a handful of uniformed deputies. We’re up to seven now, to cover three shifts, seven days a week. Plus Martin and myself. That’s nine of us, and that’s hardly a ‘division’ of any kind.

“You and Martin Holman, then.” Camille said.

I grimaced. “The halt and the blind. You’re too kind.” I ate another nacho, particularly savoring the cheese. “Despite everything, Marty Holman is doing a fair-enough job. He doesn’t know much, but he’s a fast study. He’s been sheriff now for nine years, and already he’s learned that if he rubs a latent fingerprint off a piece of evidence, there’s no way we can put it back.”

“Awesome.”

“Indeed.” We sat in comfortable silence for a while. “The hardest part,” I finally said, “is remembering that an institution functioned perfectly well before we arrived on the scene, and that it will probably function perfectly well long after we leave.”

Camille nodded but didn’t respond. I rested my elbows on the table, folded my hands, and rested my chin on them, gazing across the kitchen toward the window that looked out on the backyard.

“That doesn’t make it any easier, sweetheart. Holman keeps telling me that I should take up golf.”

“Ugh,” Camille said.

“You can’t see me doing that?”

“More important, I don’t think you can see you doing that. I think you were on the right track before.”

“What’s that?”

“You saw those draft horses and it lit a passion, that’s for sure,” Camille said. “I saw your face. Everyone will think it’s silly, of course, because it involves a lot of work and time and money. But what everyone else thinks doesn’t matter. The work is good for you; you’ve got the time, and you’ve got the money. What’s silly is feeling that you have to give up this place.”

“I don’t feel I have to. I just thought that it made sense, that’s all. Estelle and Francis need the space a lot more than I do.”

“And they’re moving, so that’s no longer an issue,” Camille said. “You have a housekeeper who comes twice a week to keep the place spotless for you, so it doesn’t matter if the building itself is a thousand square feet or five thousand. Just enjoy it.”

“Maybe so.”

“And out back, those five acres are big enough that you could have a neat two-acre paddock, a small barn and arena, and still have enough space left over so that the whole complex would be hidden on all sides by whatever strange things are growing out there.”

“And a small cemetery to boot.”

Camille laughed. “And with everything here, you’d have room when company came to visit.”

I looked at Camille in mock horror. “Visit? Who’s coming to visit?”

“You never know when a grandchild might want to come and spend a week or so with his crazy grandpa.”

“They never have before,” I groused.

“That’s because you’re always working,” Camille said, and she looked at me as if to add, “So there.”

I took a deep breath, eyeing the nachos. “I’ll think on it,” I said.

I was about to reach for the tempting morsel when Camille reached over to the counter and picked up the pill organizer. “Here,” she said. “Have some. It’s time.”